Strange cave in Vietnam

Located deep in the mountains of Tan Hoa, Minh Hoa, Quang Binh, Tu Lan cave system is 2 to 5 million years old is considered as the wonder of the gift. Not the largest cave, but in terms of beauty, the experts here are not inferior to Son Doong. Beside Xiu, the cave system also includes auxiliary caves such as Song, Sapa, Chuong, Hung Ton, Kim, Ken.
On the flight from Ho Chi Minh City - Dong Hoi and then take a taxi to Phong Nha to rest, the next day I moved to Tan Hoa at the station to start here from the discovery of the mysterious cave. I am eager to know that I am taking part in a unique experience, designed a separate tour.
This is a new cave ever published or tourism. We are accompanied by Deb Limbert - wife of Mr. Howard Limbert - of the Royal British Caves Adventure. Both have more than 26 years of attachment to Vietnam, more footprints in 300 caves in Quang Binh and nearly 200 caves across the country.
Another interesting companion is Ryan Deboodt, a famous American cave photographer. He has taken pictures of Son Doong cave, En cave, Va cave, Tu Lien ... appearing in prestigious magazines such as National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, The Guardian, The Telegraph.
As planned, we plan to go to 5 of 12 caves of the system of Dung Dung cave: Tien Tien 1 cave (2314 m), Tien 2 cave (2519 m), new cave in Ban 2 (639 m), Tu Lan cave (2226 m), and Kim Cave (829 m).
The first priority is to prepare the costumes to suit each itinerary. First, the delegation will focus on exploring dry caves. After that, the delegation will continue to the water caves. Such division helps us to reduce baggage weights and convenience when preparing our clothes.
With the dry cave system, we use high-necked canvas shoes with many spines to cling well, high-grade socks used to thighs to prevent insect bites. The pants are elastic with a T-shirt and a rainproof jacket. We use gauntlet type gloves to increase grip when climbing, protect the head with a dedicated helmet with lights for convenient movement. Most of the equipment I use is porter assisted porters and only carry a camera with two dedicated lenses and a tripod.

Go up the wrong way of Tien

The delegation set out with 15 people including an information gathering team and 6 experienced porter and sheriff porter. The bus ride through the village and then straight into the forest. The road is getting more and more muddy, to where the quagmire is too big, the wheel spinning to stop.We started to walk.
The first place we discovered was Tien Tien cave, all the slopes up to the depths and then back to the depths hun smoked. As we get older, we get tired and the silence lasts by breathing out. Continuing through the rocky yards hundreds of meters long, the road increasingly steep, but when raised head, everyone is shocked, surprised ...
The cave door is halfway up the mountain with the dome of tens of meters high in front of the eyes, watching the porter go ahead to tiny people in the giant kingdom. Thousands of stalactites plugged back in the ceiling and then poured meters, sparkling and virtual. However, that is just the door that opens up the world of fanciful, as entering deep into the cave is much nicer.
On the ground, water eroded the limestone layers over millions of years creating beautifully curved gullies, and the moss carpeting on the surface created a bluish flow. At the ceiling hang the stalactite columns nearly 10 meters high, shimmering under the lights. We go deep into that beautiful world.
The next day of the journey is conquering Tien 2 cave, majestic and broader than Tien 1 cave. The main arch of the cave is more than 400 meters long and 30 meters high. This is also known as "nameless paradise" with a length of 2,519 m, the deepest 94 m above the ground. In front of the cave is a small stream.
In Tien 2, the most impressive thing is that when the light comes on, hundreds of children fall into darkness in the dark, beautiful.

The night between wild mountain forests

In the cave, we forgot all the time, the sky was already in the afternoon. We hurried back to the campsite before it fell dark. The farm was downstream. The evening is when the strangers in the group gathered to talk to dinner. No regional or national gap, no language barrier.
Our head is Hoang Trung Kien - who takes on many roles throughout the journey: lead delegates, tour guides, interpreters, inspectors, "experts", lighting and also role activists ... Kien was born in 1989 and has 4 years attached to the "forest eating, mountain", went all 11 routes caves are exploited today. He said this, because of his passion for extrovert, explore, passionate mountain forests. Thanks to this job Kien has the opportunity to exchange, learn and associate friends around the world. Not to mention the tired or stressful time just to get into the forest, he is full of vitality.

Hang Trang - stalactites never seen in Vietnam

Finding the cave is also very accidental. Trung - Indigenous people - once on the mountain to find honey, he saw the bees flying on high mountains so he climbed. At the summit, Trung unexpectedly discovered a huge cave mouth was curious to go deep, but only one segment saw the cliff sealed only a small hole and a spleen. Take the stone throw, try not to hear the sound echo, guessing very deep, Trung returned to ask a few experienced people with full equipment back to explore this cave.
Road to the cave is very hard when the entrance is plentiful on the top of the mountain. I like to fall because of exhaustion when reaching the cave entrance, by the nearly vertical high slope has withdrawn the strength of many members of the delegation.
Continue for about 50 m, go through a small hole, I fell into a state of losing control of the magnificent stone castle in front of the eyes. The stalactites are 20 m tall and shiny, not stacked as single pillars, but as a giant stone curtain.
The more deeply into the scene, the more spectacular it is. The cave began to descend, the columns began to separate into hundreds of thousands of columns but arranged in a perfect order, emerald began to appear on the ground. Round stones are stacked neatly together, lying in the rocks of millions of years that form.
Mrs. Deb told us that this is a very special cave in Vietnam, there are some kinds of stalactites that you rarely see. Especially, in the more than 350 caves in Quang Binh that she has stamped, this is the only cave with "coral" stalactites. I hurried to follow her to quickly admire this wonderful stalactite.

Tu Lang - Ken Cave, crossing underground river, climbing high

In the next days, we will continue to explore the ruins of the cave and Ken Cave.
Tu Lien is a cave system wet and dry intersection so the journey is much harder. We had to swim over hundreds of meters of underground rivers and climb the cliffs. Strenuous and tired is so but every time stop to look at the beauty of the multicolored masses, how much fatigue tired again.
Many difficult sections we have to use dedicated climbing ropes to pass. Each climber always has two wires, one drop and one safety belt. The two strings are anchored to 3 points deep into the cliff, if any point pops out there are still 2 anchor points kept.
I still carved a beautiful image in Ken Cave when standing from above, before the eyes is a giant stalactite stalks, deep below, two small boats shadow on the blue water miraculous.

Spend time to take pictures

This trip, Ryan was invited to take a photo of the new cave. His camera is specialized for capturing the damp air in the cave. In addition, he needs the help of a system of 6 specialized lights, each worth more than $ 6,000. The equipment is adequate but the transport and storage is extremely hard. All the machines are carefully wrapped by Ryan, then put in a dry box to prevent water, then rolled two more thick nylon layers before putting them in a dry bag.
Proper lighting is the hardest challenge for Ryan. At each location, the delegation will only stop about 10-15 minutes to prepare, and the shooting time in just 1-2 minutes. Therefore, the photographer must be very knowledgeable and experienced cave shooting.
In order to have impressive footage from Ryan, the flycam must be taken off in low light conditions, without GPS signals, strong winds, magnetic fields, and anti-collision reflections from the sensor are not standard. Very high collision and fall ability.
I still remember Ken needed a last scene. At that time the flycam battery is only 8% but Ryan still decided to fly because there is no other opportunity to return. We sat on the small raft, Ryan took control flycam fly blind in the cave. Fortunately, the shooting was completed when the battery life was 2%.
A 5-day trek through the jungle, climbing to the summit, climbing into the deep pool, swimming in the underground river or jogging in the middle of the jungle is an unforgettable experience. One day, I had to go back to this place to continue exploring, experiencing the beauty of nature, as well as to practice my will, skill and skills.